2017 Fellows

Hope Anderson

Southern Methodist University

Born and raised in Dallas, Hope Anderson is a graduating senior from Southern Methodist University with a triple major in Human Rights, Sociology, and History. Hope’s passion for human rights led her to intern with global nonprofits like the International Rescue Committee and International Justice Mission, as well as local anti-poverty organizations like CitySquare. Hope also studied human rights challenges through the SIT International Honors Program, where she conducted research on the relationship between NGOs and forced migrants in Nepal, Jordan, and Chile. At SMU, Hope served as a student coordinator for the Embrey Human Rights Program, where she led and organized trips focused on civil rights history and the death penalty. This unique program sparked her love for social justice education and community dialogues. In the coming years, she hopes to work with other scholar-activists and young people to create human rights initiatives at more universities in the South.

Rukhsar Asif

University of Southern Denmark

Rukhsar Asif studies Market and Management Anthropology at the university of Southern Denmark and hopes to become a global leader that can shift the focus from the current material world to the world of the people. She cooperates with different politically active organizations, where she helps to organize demonstrations, do public speeches and participate in debates. She also has her own reality-show, which gives insights in how Muslim girls live in Denmark to clarify various stereotypes. She manages the international department in a voluntary organization, where she initiates Erasmus+ programs in cooperation with the EU, which gives her the chance to help people. Moreover, she works with different municipalities to help them integrate projects that build bridges between minorities and majorities. She also works as a peace -ambassador, where her job is to prevent racism within anti-sexist discourses.

Simone Aumaj

Utrecht University

Simone Zalla Aumaj is an undergraduate student of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. She majors in Cultural Anthropology, with a minor in Gender Studies within her programme. Studying oppression and privilege from an intersectional perspective has made her own experience as a Dutch citizen with Afghan roots more tangible. Even though Simone describes her societal position as an experience in which she is flowing between contradicting discourses, she acknowledges that her Dutch citizenship and Afghan ethnicity constitute a meaningful dialogue. Since the age of nine she has been involved in the advocacy of human rights, stimulating youth participation and lobbying by working together with multiple organizations, among which: Jeugdnu, KinderrechtNU and Gender Concerns International. Next year she will do three months of anthropological fieldwork abroad and is hoping to pursue a masters in Gender Studies.

￼Jazmine Buckley

Mercer University

Jaz Buckley is a junior at Mercer University where she studies Political Science, Women and Gender Studies, and French. She is a nationally ranked parliamentary debater and has Won several tournaments across the country. Additionally, Jaz is a leader in other areas of debate. She the captain of Mercer’s debate team, judges high school tournaments, and coaches at a high school in rural Georgia. In the summer of 2016, she helped created debate programs at primary schools in South Africa. Jaz is also active in several activities related to diversity. Jaz has interned at a human rights NGO in South Africa and has worked with student government to increase campus diversity. Through programs like campus Flag Parades and Diversity Week, Jaz has helped make campus more inclusive. She hopes to continue to advocate for minority rights as a civil rights attorney and specifically address issues related to race and law.

Seung Hyun Chung

University of Pennsylvania

Born in Busan, South Korea and from Cypress, California, Seung Hyun Chung is a rising senior at the University of Pennsylvania with a major in English and minors in Fine Arts and Asian American Studies. An aspiring artist and writer, Seung Hyun has used his storytelling practice as a way to affectively articulate issues of minority mental health, refugee trauma, hybrid identity, and collective memory. Seung Hyun also serves as co-chair of the Asian American Studies Undergraduate Advisory Board at Penn, fighting for the program's continued existence and working to increase student engagement with critical discourse in minority and ethnic studies. While he is refreshingly uncertain about his post-graduate plans, he hopes to continue using creative media as a way to inspire a culture of human rights.

Adam Cohen

University of Pennsylvania

Born and raised in Maine, Adam Cohen graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 with a major in Urban Studies. Throughout his time as an undergraduate, he worked extensively in West Philadelphia’s public high schools helping to provide college and financial aid counseling services to aspiring first- generation students. His research focused on the effectiveness of different Housing First models in improving the wellbeing of people experiencing chronic homelessness, the impacts of local procurement efforts by large anchor institutions, and the role of universities in revitalizing historically disadvantaged neighborhoods. During his senior year, he served as the chair for his university’s Netter Center for Community Partnerships Student Advisory Board. Adam recently finished an internship with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and is now completing a fellowship with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2015, Adam was selected as a Harry S Truman Scholar.

Chandra Dickey

Scripps College

Raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, Chandra Dickey has spent the past year as an English Teaching Assistant in France. She is passionate about making cultural institutions more accessible to communities of color and studying the African Diaspora in the Francophone Atlantic. In 2016, Chandra graduated cum laude from Scripps College in Claremont, California with a dual degree in History and Politics. There, she was a Questbridge Scholar and student organizer for various issues regarding institutional support for students of color. Her time at Scripps led her to study abroad in Nantes, France, where she studied France's involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, and the significance of the country’s increasing immigrant population. Upon graduating, Chandra interned for the Library Company of Philadelphia where she conducted research and special projects under the African American History Program as a Mellon Scholar. In the future, she plans to pursue a degree in Public Humanities.

Roberto Flores

Florida State University

Born in Mexico City, Roberto Flores moved to south Texas at the age of ten. They currently attend Florida State University with majors in Piano Performance and Interdisciplinary Social Sciences and a minor in Economics. Throughout their college experience, Roberto served as a mentor and facilitator for various leadership development programs, seeking to inspire low-income and minority freshmen and high schools students. As the Assistant Director of the Pride Student Union, Roberto worked to empower LGBTQ+ students by helping them lead their own events and workshops. In addition, Roberto led their own leadership development program specifically for LGBTQ+ students. Working with community and campus partners, Roberto also coordinated free STI and HIV testing events, providing resources and education to an often neglected high-risk population. In their spare time, Roberto loves to explore new compositions from Mexico and seeks opportunities to perform the music of Latin American composers.

Małgorzata “Malgosia” Hermanowicz

Warsaw School of Economics

Małgosia Hermanowicz is a double-degree Master Programme student at the Warsaw School of Economics and NOVA Lisboa SBE in Management. Academically Małgosia has focused on Latin American countries (specifically Brazil), sustainability and socio-economic development. Professionally, Małgosia has been working on several cultural projects, featuring topics of new media, international exchange of audiovisual archives, creative industries and film. She is very keen on international cultural relations and sees it as an important enabler of growth and sustainable development.

Arlette Hernandez

Washington and Lee University

Arlette Hernandez was born in Havana, Cuba to parents of Spanish and African descent. She has lived the majority of her life in Florida, but has spent the last three years attending university in Virginia where she majors in English with minors in Creative Writing and Africana Studies. She has spent a semester abroad in Bath, England, where she studied English literature and conducted independent research on issues of class, race, genre, and marketing. As a Mellon Digital Humanities student fellow, she has spent the past year working on a project that uses postcolonial theory to highlight the misrepresentations of African peoples and the continent within archival materials. Arlette hopes to participate in the Teach for America program before pursuing a Ph.D in postcolonial literature. One of her goals in life is to teach a college level seminar on black sitcoms, hip-hop music, and issues of imperialism.

Esra Karakaya

Humboldt-University Berlin

Esra Karakaya is a music and media scientist, journalist and grassroots activist. As a daughter of Turkish and Korean immigrants, she has been involved in various minority communities for many years in her hometown of Berlin. Esra is a seeker and always on the lookout for the sound that makes her heart sway.

Sabiha Kapetanovic

Ege University

Sabiha Kapetanovic was born and raised in Sarajevo. Once she received the scholarship to study in Turkey she moved to Turkey where she completed her BA in International Relations from Ege University in Izmir. She spent a semester at Maastricht University for European Studies as part of her BA studies. Shortly after she received her BA degree, she won the Schuman Fellowship at the European Parliament, Policy Department for Western Balkans and Turkey. Sabiha has been involved in many different projects, organisations that are promoting social equality and social mobility. The latest activities were related to a fight against unpaid internships. As part of the fight she directed the short documentary named Colours of Unpaid Youth. Currently she works at EUROCONTROL trying to improve their traineeship programme and make it more transparent. She likes to fight using different shapes of art such as applied theatre and contemporary dance.

￼Jordanos Kiros

Vrije universiteit

Jordanos Kiros, Master of Laws, 27 years old, born and raised in the Netherlands. In December 2016, she graduated with the master of Private Law, with a specialization in contract law, labour law and migration law. Over the last few years, she has mostly been learning about people, history, politics and culture abroad. She took part in an exchange program in South Africa, did an internship in Indonesia and travelled and worked in parts of Australia, Southeast Asia and Africa. As of January 2017, she is the president of the Eritrean Association in Amsterdam and surroundings. Her goal is to encourage the Eritrean diaspora and refugees to meet their full potential within the Dutch society while keeping their Eritrean identity. In the future she plans to pass the bar and be an advocate for employee rights and human rights.

Konstantinos “Konstantin” Koukos

Copenhagen Business School

Born and raised in Athens, Konstantinos Koukos holds a BSc in Marketing and Communications from Athens University of Economics and Business. In 2016, Konstantinos moved to Copenhagen to pursue Master of Science studies in Business, Language and Culture with concentration on Diversity and Change Management. He has working experience in Project Management, Human Resource Management, Marketing and Communications in firms and has been part of several NGOs and teams. Some of the projects were developed in the social entrepreneurship field, the promotion of human rights and diversity, the battle against youth unemployment and discrimination through the use of the new media and network creation.

Zelma Feldman Lewerissa

University of Copenhagen

Born and raised in Copenhagen, Zelma Feldman Lewerissa currently studies anthropology at the University of Copenhagen. At the age of 16, Zelma moved to India to attend United World College for two years. One of her main interests is theatre as a tool for social change. At UWC, she started a social theatre project with young girls from a local Maharashtrian village. Currently part of the theatre group ‘De Sceneste’, initiated by the Danish Royal Theatre, and aims to involve more young people in Danish theatre world. As a response to xenophobic discourses in the Danish media, she attended the course ‘Opinionmaker against Discrimination’ and became a part of the ‘Dialogue ambassadors’, a group of young Jews and Muslims who aims to combat islamophobia and antisemitism and encourage coexistence. As a student job she writes and performs monologues about social issues and minority experiences for the Socioeconomic theatre company C:ntact.

Alex Mabanta

University of California, Berkeley

Alex Mabanta graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a double major in Political Science and Rhetoric, and a minor in Human Rights. With a passion for social justice, Alex chairs the Peace and Justice Commission, a legislative body charged with crafting human rights ordinances for the city of Berkeley. As a student, he also directed the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program, a pro-bono tax assistance organization that serves low-income families across the San Francisco Bay Area and founded the Financial Literacy and Economic Justice Conference (Flejcon), the first campus-wide student-organized and student-oriented financial literacy conference of its kind. Together, Alex is drawn to public service and empowering people. He hopes to lead a career advancing inclusive social policies for diverse communities throughout the United States.

Mairi “Mary” Markaki

Harakopio University

Born and raised in Greece, Mairi Markaki regards herself to be a vivid spirit and a multifaceted personality with various interest and passion to meet different people and live valuable, constructive experiences. She holds a Bachelor degree in Nutrition, but later on she decided to turn to other fields that would better fit her professional identity and personal aspirations. After attending seminars and publishing articles based on innovation, action and disruption, she participated in an Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs program, living in Berlin for 6 months. This came as a result of her interest in entrepreneurship and in projects with added value and social impact, which is her main goal. She works in the Sales/Business Development Department of a Greek startup, as she loves communication, believes in team work and wants to help others reach their personal development. She loves running and dancing as they feed one’s soul, mind and body.

Darriel McBride

Marist College

Darriel McBride is a senior at Marist College studying English Writing with a double minor in Video Production and Global Studies. Darriel grew up in the South Bronx. She is the first in her family to attend college as well as the first Marist student to study abroad in Western Samoa where she spent a semester traveling throughout the Pacific Islands. During her study abroad program, she conducted independent research on education policy implementation in Samoan public schools. Darriel is a leader on her campus, where she organizes various cultural and social events in order to promote inclusion and unite her campus community. Darriel is a 2017 Fulbright Fellow and will be teaching English in South Africa in January of 2018. She is also a Gates Millennium Scholar and hopes to pursue her Masters degree with the realm of Education Policy upon her return to the United States.

Emily McDonnell

The University of Arizona

Born and raised on the Navajo reservation, Emily McDonnell studied public policy and American Indian studies at the University of Arizona. As a Navajo and convert to Judaism she was active in both Native American and Jewish student organizations throughout college where she held leadership positions. Emily currently runs the Moishe House Without Walls program in Tucson where she hosts and organizes social and religious programs for Jewish young professionals. While in college, Emily became passionate about educational equity, particularly in relation to Native American education and plans to pursue a joint degree in public policy and a law degree. This year she had the opportunity to teach social studies to middle school students in a Native American school.

Ehlimana Memisevic

University of Sarajevo

Ehlimana Memisevic is currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Law, University of Sarajevo. She received her B.A. in Law from the University of Sarajevo in 2009, and an M.A. degree in 2013. Ehlimana has been working as a teaching and research assistant since 2009; since 2014, she has worked as a senior teaching and research assistant at the Department of Legal History and Comparative Law at the Faculty of Law. Her research interests include legal history, comparative law, the relationship between religion and law, transitional justice, human rights with a special focus on women's rights etc.

Priyanka Menon

Harvard University

From Ann Arbor, Michigan, Priyanka Menon is currently a Humanities Fellow at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection in Washington, D.C. She graduated from Harvard College in 2016, where she studied mathematics and history, and was involved with the Harvard Political Review and the Scholars at Risk program. Priyanka is interested in the ethical foundations of group decision- making and applications of this to the law. Next year, Priyanka will pursue a joint JD-PhD at Harvard University.

Pedro Monque

St. Olaf College

Pedro Monque is a Bilingual Resource Specialist for the Madison Metropolitan School District where he works with underserved English Language Learners and their families. He is also Teacher Aide at community empowerment program Trail to Success – High Ridge Trail, and Facilitator for Empoderando a Latinoamérica, a youth-led program whose goal is to empower emerging Latin American community leaders. Through these positions, he has engaged children and youth in discussions about social justice and community engagement. Pedro was born and raised in Venezuela. He holds a B.A. in Philosophy from St. Olaf College and will join the Ph.D. program in Philosophy at CUNY Graduate Center in the fall.

￼Alma Mujanović

The University of Sarajevo

Alma Mujanović was born in Montenegro. She currently lives in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Alma is a student at the Faculty of the Health Sciences, in field the of Radiology Technology at the University of Sarajevo. She works with people who fight to break discrimination, especially people with disabilities. Since 2010, Alma has actively engaged in issues of human rights and has participated in many fields of non-formal education and integration in the social environment. Currently, she is a member of many organisations. Her hobbies include photography and writing. She often writes about human rights and inclusion of people with disabilities. She was a participant in many educational programs in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Europe (Norway, 2015, Italy, 2016, Albania 2016, Switzerland 2016, Youth Exchange in Greece 2016, European Forum Alpbach, Austria, 2016). Her motivation is socializing with people and she loves to be among people with whom she is feeling happy and fulfilled.

Lila Murphy

New York University

Originally from Philadelphia, Lila Murphy is a rising junior at New York University concentrating in Politics, Rights, and Development, with a minor in both Dance and Spanish Language. Prior to attending university, Lila traveled extensively throughout Latin America and South Asia observing localized methods of community development, education, and agriculture. She is a firm believer in the power smaller communities yield towards greater social change, and has worked in community development in many different capacities. In addition to her academic work, Lila is an artist who aims to challenge social stigmas through contrary visual representations. She plans on furthering her work in the arts after graduation, infusing her work with her passion for social and policy change.

Sara Osman

University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Born and raised in Minneapolis, Sara Osman is a Global Studies and Afro Studies double major, focusing on human rights on the continent of Africa, at the University of Minnesota. Sara spent a semester abroad in Nepal, Jordan and Chile studying comparative human rights. She serves as the Community Liaison/Direct Action Coordinator for the Young Muslim Collective. She is also a community organizer and works as a Youth Leader for the American Friends Service Committee in St. Paul. In her spare time, Sara is a writer, a photographer and a diversity training consultant. After college, Sara hopes to stay in Minnesota and develop programs for young Somali women in the Twin Cities to better prepare them for higher education.

￼Beau Revlett

University of Kentucky

Beau Revlett is a rising junior philosophy major at the University of Kentucky. He grew up in Georgetown, KY with his loving family. He is the leader of two student groups at UK. One focuses on homelessness in Lexington, one on on-campus food insecurity. He often works with Arbor Youth Services, an emergency shelter for at- risk youth, where he serves on the Board of Directors. He has recently been working with a small group to find good ways to improve how the needs of youth in Lexington are met. At the moment, his academic interests are primarily in philosophy of science and logic. Before HIA this summer, he will be doing research with Dr. Julia Bursten on causation in philosophy of science. He likes analytic philosophy quite a bit and hopes to study it in graduate school. His friends often accuse him of disagreeing just for the sake of disagreeing.

Eliza Rutynowska

University of Warsaw

Eliza Rutynowska was born in Warsaw, but raised both there as well as Maastricht, The Netherlands. She is currently a fourth year law and first year internal security studies student of the Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities College at Warsaw University. She worked as a paralegal at the Polish Society of Anti- discrimination Law. Eliza is passionate about criminal justice and human rights, and is a graduate of the "Innocence Project - preventing wrongful convictions" workshop at the University of Warsaw. Eliza is currently a member of the University's Legal Aid Clinic, providing legal advice for the needy.

Ian Stewart

Illinois Wesleyan University

Ian Fields Stewart (pronouns: they/them/their) is a black, queer, and gender nonconforming New York based storyteller working at the intersection of theatre and activism. A native of Birmingham, AL, their work is centered in deconstructing mainstream media forms and rebuilding them to amplify and include the voices of marginalized people in our local and global communities. Ian's work has been published and seen across multiple mediums including The Journal of Community Practice, Buzzfeed, MoveOn.org, the United Nations, and many performance venues in New York City and beyond.

Keitavious “Trey” Walk

Duke University

Born in the small town of Gray Court, South Carolina and raised in Greenville, Trey Walk is a rising junior at Duke University studying history with a concentration on Human Rights and Social Movements. Trey is interested how policies lead to structural inequality and how society- institutions and everyday people- responds to these inequalities. He is involved with Community Empowerment Fund, a nonprofit in Durham and Chapel Hill that works to combat homelessness and poverty. He is also involved with several organizations on campus at Duke. Trey loves music, dance, literature, film, and theatre and has recently become more interested in how art is used to heal, provoke, and inspire social change. Eventually, Trey would like to get a J.D. and an M.P.P. to enter into public service.

￼David Werdermann

University of Freiburg

After graduating from high school near Münster and volunteering as a human rights observer in the Philippines, David Werdermann studied law in Freiburg, Germany, focusing on public international and European law. He completed his studies in 2016 and is currently working as a research associate at the Institute for Staatswissenschaft and Philosophy of Law at the University of Freiburg, where he is teaching constitutional law. He is planning to write a PhD thesis about constitutional rights of immigrants. David is author of various articles and political activist focusing on fundamental rights, migration policy and education. He is active member of the “work group of critical lawyers” (Arbeitskreis kritischer Jurist*innen), an association of left-wing young lawyers, and the “Forum ‘Active against Exclusion’ Freiburg” (Freiburger Forum aktiv gegen Ausgrenzung), an organization supporting Roma from the Western Balkans.